Steven's Quiz 12

1. Who did Ramón Mercader murder in Mexico in 1940?

2. The ship the 'Cutty Sark' was designed to carry what cargo?

3. How long can sturgeon, which produce the unfertilised roe known as caviar, live for:
    a: 25 years
    b: 50 years
    c: 75 years
    d: 100 years?

4. Plus or minus five percent, how much of his wealth does Bill Gates reportedly intend to give away before he dies?

5. Staying with money and charity, in the United States, whose is the largest charity after Bill and Melinda Gates's foundation?

6. Weather reports in Europe now include the so-called 'pollen count'. But what exactly does it measure:
    a: Number of pollen grains per cubic yard of air
    b: Number of pollen grains per cubic metre of air
    c: Ratio of temperature and pollen release?

7. Winnie the Pooh again, where does Winnie the Pooh come in the Forbes magazine list of the top 10 highest earning fictional characters:
    a: First
    b: Second
    c: Fifth
    d: Eighth?

8. The great author Charles Dickens was born in 1812 - but in which British city:
    a: Portsmouth
    b: London
    c: Canterbury
    d: Rochester
    e: Guildford?

9. The term SMOG first appeared in a public health paper in 1905. How was this word derived?

10. What do the initials stand for in AA Milne's name?

11. Which dead person has won the most amount of Oscars?

ANSWERS

1. Leon Trotsky.Jaume Ramon Mercader del Rio Hern?ndez (February 7, 1914 - October 18, 1978) was a Spanish Communist who served as a foreign agent of the NKVD during Joseph Stalin's time as ruler of the Soviet Union. In that role, he became famous as the assassin of Stalin's great rival, Leon Trotsky. Mercader's superiors at the NKVD selected him to assassinate Trotsky, who had been forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1929, after losing a power struggle to Stalin, but who had continued to antagonize the Soviet leader with his writings and political activities in exile. In October 1939, Mercader slipped into Mexico with a fake passport identifying him as Frank Jackson, a Canadian citizen.

2. Tea, from China to London.Cutty Sark was destined for the tea trade, then an intensely competitive race across the globe from China to London, with immense profits to the ship to arrive with the first tea of the year. However, she did not distinguish herself; in the most famous race, against Thermopylae in 1872, both ships left Shanghai together on June 18, but two weeks later Cutty Sark lost her rudder after passing through the Sunda Strait, and arrived in London on October 18, a week after Thermopylae, a total passage of 122 days. Her legendary reputation is supported by the fact her captain chose to continue this race with an improvised rudder instead of putting into port for a replacement, yet was only beaten by one week.

3. d: 100 years

4. 95%

5. The Ford Foundation, started by the founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford. It has an estimated $12bn (£8.25bn) in assets.

6. b: Number of pollen grains per cubic metre of air.The higher the number, the more people who will suffer because they are allergic to a particular pollen . Usually the counts are announced for specific plants such as grass, ash or olive. These are tailored to what is usually a common plant in the area being measured. One method of taking the sample uses a silicone grease covered rod that is rotated in the air to collect the pollen. The rod is rotated periodically during the collection period to gather samples through an entire 24 hour day. The rod is then removed and taken to a lab where the collected material is analyzed for the type of pollen and its concentration.

7. b: Second, just behind Mickey Mouse.

8. a: Portsmouth - though he did later live in Kent and London.

9. SMokey fOG - the word, describing the noxious London pollution, was coined from smokey fog

10. Alan AlexanderAlan Alexander Milne (January 18, 1882 - January 31, 1956) is most famous for his Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin, after his son, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. The source of the name is reputedly a Canadian black bear named Winnipeg Bear (after Winnipeg), that was used as a military mascot by the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, a Canadian Infantry Regiment in World War I, and left to London Zoo after the war. After its heroics On September 14 1915, the bear was named 'Winnie the Pooh', years before Milne adopted it. E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy, Growler ("a magnificent bear"), as the model. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now under glass in New York.

11. Walt Disney